


Elevator Songs

by Inaccessible Rail (strangetales)



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Gen, archive warning: a lot of "the light and the dark" drivel, archive warning: anxiety is for lovers, archive warning: canon typical violence, archive warning: do not eff with me on this, archive warning: frank has ptsd, archive warning: frank helps leo build a volcano, archive warning: frank is smart ok, archive warning: frank plays guitar, archive warning: he buys her chinese food, archive warning: it takes him a year, archive warning: karen page is a penelope, archive warning: there will almost always be swears, archive warning: there's a breakfast at tiffany's reference, archive warning: to kiss karen page, archive warning: using hair as a metaphor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-02-04 15:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12774273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangetales/pseuds/Inaccessible%20Rail
Summary: A series of drabbles or shorter works that I've posted on Tumblr about my two trauma buds in probable love.





	1. 11.20.17

**Author's Note:**

> _This is my first time writing any of these characters, so please bear with me. Batten down the hatches, etc. etc. This takes place after The Defenders but before the new Punisher series. Basically a Karen Page character study with some Kastle because I love their dumb butts. **Warning for swears and canon-typical violence.**_

There's something about women and vengeance. Some unknown, yet to be written variable that will never see the light of day. Maybe there’s even a list of women on a document somewhere; each one followed by another name with no substance in between. She’s not sure she’ll ever publish it—it’d have to be an op-ed or something. It’s not really newsworthy, but it does feel relevant somehow.

“How is it that you require a dick to acceptably lose your damn mind?”

 _Josie’s_  is always packed when it rains, full of patrons in untenable living situations not made for those weeks in fall when it never fucking ends. It’s been uncomfortably damp for about 3 straight days and she’s already ruined some of her nicer shoes.

“Unfortunately,” Trish answers sagely, gulping down a substantial amount of bourbon, “a dick is required for most things.”

* * *

 There’s a vengeance narrative running through this city that Karen can’t quite get a line on. These men running around in armor waging war for all of these “legitimate” reasons and she’s just sitting here with this fire burning a goddamn hole in her chest.

Jessica drops a pitcher in the middle of the table and grins. “Hey now, I’ve lost it plenty.”

“And it’s not the ‘dicks’ so much as it is the patriarchal bullshit.”

“That’s right,” Jessica answers with a nod to Claire, “no two dicks are alike.”

Karen mumbles against the lip of her shot glass, the smell of the tequila tickling the fine hairs of her nose. Can already taste it at the back of her throat. There’s lots of laughter and jokes about cocks and how nice Rogers’ butt looks in those pants and somewhere around 3 AM she turns in for the night. Or out. Roaming the dark, wet streets of Hell’s Kitchen trying to put the fire out.

* * *

He quells and kindles the flame in her belly in a really unsettling way. It’s hard to explain to anybody, so she doesn’t really try to—just stares at her laptop and all those names and thinks about vengeance.

And who is she trying to fool anyway?

“It’s not like I’m even gonna write the damn thing.”

He’s half-asleep, the tip of his nose so close to the surface of his coffee she’s afraid he might burn himself.

“Hey,” she says again, tugging lightly at his shoulder, “you planning on drinking that?”

He grunts and sips at it, the captivating spectrum of blues and purples shuffling around on the planes of his face. It’s like he can’t help but look like spilled gasoline all over blacktop. There’s also this vague left behind-ness of sweat and pus and in the end it just looks like oil swirling around in dirty rain water.

She goes for an ice pack in the freezer; started to buy those soft, fabric-covered packs because she kept noticing that small flinch underneath his eye whenever she had used the hard ones against his warm, swollen face.

“Well?” she asks again, hoping he’s perked up a bit in the last 30 seconds, “No comment?”

“You wanna write about justice.”

“Vengeance.”

“Same thing, ain’t it?”

She’s not quite sure it’s the same thing, but she’s been struggling to articulate why. Frank Castle would absolutely say that vengeance and justice are one in the same, and maybe they are a little bit, but there’s something a little more satisfying in executing vengeance isn’t there? And it’s not just the way the word sounds in your mouth as the “v” passes between your teeth and over your lips.

“I don’t know,” she says slowly, considering the answer. “I used to think so.”

“But you don’t anymore.”

“I don’t think so,” sick to death of not actually  _knowing_  anything, and just  _thinking_  that she does, “no.” Nodding, a charming definitiveness to the bounce of her hair. “No, not anymore.”

* * *

Sometimes she imagines James Wesley in handcuffs and it’s not nearly as satisfying as the memory of his chest riddled with bullet holes. She never told Matt, and Foggy has no idea. Trish doesn’t know, or Jessica, or Claire. But he knows. The Punisher knows.

“I guess I’d just like to know if I make the cut,” she inquires one evening over cheap as hell vodka straight from a plastic jug.

“You’re fucked up, Page,” he answers on a grin, casually sliding a glass of water across the table. “Also no, your ass never gonna make it.”

“I wish you’d be a bit more consistent sometimes.”

“Yeah, well,” sniffing, grunting, “wishes are a funny thing.”

She wants to ask a question but she’s afraid of the answer. Wants to know what would happen if she were to admit it—that there was an absolute righteousness to it. A vengeful quality to the way her finger wrapped around the trigger, absolutely certain of her decision to squeeze. Would he be so forgiving then?

“I got no answer for you, ma’am. If only this shit were simpler, right?”

Apparently too drunk to know she’s asked a question instead of simply thinking it, slightly mortified but also frustrated at this vague, lacking answer that won’t cure her writer’s block or make her feel any better about this unnerving heat in her bloodstream.

At some point he must’ve walked her to bed, tucked her in. She wakes up early the next morning still wearing her tights and skirt, top slightly askew but that’s only because she sleeps like she’s been in a fight. When she looks to her right there’s some water and aspirin on the nightstand. If only this shit were simpler.

* * *

There’s a story in the wind about sexual assault statistics in city prisons and she gets blown into a bit of hot water over it. She says “a bit,” when really it’s kind of monsoon levels of hot water and she’s been dreaming of buying a boat or something. Like middle aged men who fantasize about divorcing their wives but they up and buy a freaking boat instead.

She’s managed to cut herself loose this time, all on her own. No Matt or Frank waiting in the wings to set her free. It’s a lucky thing, she could easily slip through the door into that side alley. Run up the street, find a cop. But ya know what else is easy? Slamming a crowbar against the back of this asshole’s head. Which is where the whole vengeance v. justice conundrum comes into play.

Pictures him in handcuffs—sees him in a courtroom, in a jumpsuit, rotting away in a jail cell. Feels the weight of the crowbar in her hands, the way the scrapes against her palms start to stretch and bleed all over it and it’s way more satisfying than the handcuffs and the television reporters. Because he’s run his slimy hands over her chest and through her hair; because he’s admitted to her the heinous shit he’s done to all those women and he doesn’t  _deserve_  justice. She wonders if maybe justice is a privilege before she brings it down in a shot against his knees.

* * *

She doesn’t kill him, so that rends the entire vengeance and women piece moot.

“Why?” he asks politely, or about as politely as Frank can, taking cartons of Chinese food out of a plastic bag. “What’s changed?”

“Did you bring me Chinese food?” Ignoring the question in favor of admiring The Punisher in all his delivery boy glory, taking down plates and cups and silverware with a disturbingly intimate knowledge of her kitchen cabinets.

“If you don’t take those meds with food, shit won’t end well for you,” he grunts, placing a steaming plate of noodles in front of her. “Eat.”

“Wouldn’t you have preferred I killed him?”

“Maiming works too.”

She snorts, manages to curl a few noodles around her chopsticks. What does the violence got to do with it? This vengeance narrative she’s writing in her head. How does an angry woman define herself in the company of such fine, fine violence?

“Nah, I don’t think it’s about that.”

“Oh, all of a sudden you have an opinion?”

There’s a lot of people out there, a general consensus, even, that Frank Castle isn’t the cleverest of the vigilante set. That he’s all muscle and hardware; that he’s effective, but he isn’t particularly bright. Watching him move his rice and veggies across his plate, the gears in his head turning—the way his voice lowers an octave or two whenever he’s in the same room as her. Doesn’t matter what anyone thinks; there’s a carefulness to the guy, a deliberateness of movement and thought that anyone with half a brain could perceive as intelligence. Hell, he’s out smarted the cops more than enough times.

“Doesn’t need to be about the killin’,” he starts slowly, dropping his chopsticks against his plate, “not for you anyway.”

“He’ll be back, won’t he? Guys like him.”

“Probably,” he answers shortly, “there’s always gonna be guys like him.”

The mere thought of it is exhausting, knowing that no matter what she does, no matter how many knees she shatters or triggers she pulls, there’s always gonna be guys like that.

“Guys like me.”

“Frank—”

“No,” he interrupts, an ironic, painful smirk on his face. “Ain’t nothing to admitting the truth in things.”

It’s about power.

* * *

Turns out, it doesn’t really matter whether you’re the one who’s decided that the clock’s run out. It’s the adoption of the thing; the very fact of her decision that pulls the thread through the eye of the vengeance needle. She doesn’t write the article—convinced the whole thing still needs tweaking and she’s not there just yet.

“You planning on getting kidnapped a few more times first?”

“Fucking,  _ha_.”

Figuring out your place in this city is a tricky thing. Surrounded on all sides by people far more powerful than you’ll ever be. It’s hard to really know your strength in a contest like that, everyday being perceived as the weaker  _thing_  in that equation. Bat to the knees or bat to the head, there’s still a bat. Her thin, delicate fingers wrapped around the end.

“Just make sure you’re the one who’s holdin’ it.”


	2. 11.21.17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _[@distant-rose](http://distant-rose.tumblr.com/) suggested this truly horrific scenario, and I was so well and good terrified by the proposition that I tried to write it. This is some totally innocuous moment that I’m gonna say takes place about a year after S1. This is also like, Pure™ Kastle. There is v little angst, for which I apologize. The angst is mild._

The quaint calmness of this particular moment worries her. It’s always been a struggle; to appreciate the good moments for what they are, to keep herself from assuming that the good things, by their very nature of being good—well, those things can only go very bad, right?

Logically, she knows that’s no real way to live your life, but she’d rather be somewhat prepared for the inevitable nightmare than be blindsided by it. They’ve talked about it before, long conversations over coffee about how even now, with the war apparently over, he doesn’t want to be caught out. He had paid too high a price the last time. Ignorant of the fact that their had been a shoe hanging above their heads all that time—waiting to drop.

* * *

 On this particular night, the one happening in her apartment right now, this might be one of those moments that he’d told her about. In truth, it’s one of those moments that Curtis had probably told him about, and then Frank had told her afterwards. Something about how you’ve got to find a way to keep your mind from wandering—to maybe take a minute to acknowledge the happiness, but ya know after that, you actually have to  _let it happen_.

_“Sure thing,” she had snapped back humorlessly, reproaching a silent, patient Curtis that wasn’t even there, “I’ll get right on that.”  
_

_“I know,” agreeing with a skeptical brow, a sip of his coffee. “Sounds like bullshit to me too.”_

* * *

This is Karen Page, and she is acknowledging this moment. It is mid-November, and for whatever reason, the city has never looked more bleak. It’s probably something to do with it getting dark before 5, or the fact that a harsh week of rain had essentially stripped the trees of any remaining leaves. Regardless, there’d been an oppressive, February-like pall hanging over a city that had only just wrapped up the Thanksgiving weekend. It was too soon. And she had smelled snow that morning—the frigidness of the air biting at her nose, the crispness of it like a pin behind her eyes.

Fortunately, there is a full, seasonally appropriate spectrum of warmth occurring within the walls of her apartment. Varying degrees of warmness uniquely suited to a cold, just-shy-of-December evening. A warmth of air and of light, even of sound. The heat cracks and whistles from the radiator in her bedroom. It’s not the most advanced heating system she’s ever had, so she’ll stumble upon it in pockets. Like swimming towards the surface of a lake on a hot day—the top half of you floating in bliss while your toes freeze deep beneath the surface. It’s largely dark with the exception of the light hanging over the stove; the lamp in the living room shining in soft yellows across the couch, hitting the tip of his boot. It travels a bit, as if it were a spotlight, up towards his fingers as they move skillfully along the neck of her guitar (he stubbornly refuses to let her call it “his,” even though he’s the only one that’s been playing the thing).

Frank’s appearance on her doorstep on this particular evening was not unusual. In the last year or so since he’d been a “Pete,” which to be honest, didn’t suit him all that well, he’d been a frequent guest. No real reason for her dislike of the name other than the fact that he is for sure a “Frank,” and  _Frank_  is most certainly the person with the one leg flung out her kitchen window right now. The one with the acoustic guitar on his lap; the one strumming the chords to “Moon River,” the sound of his fingertips clipping steel strings echoing beneath the quiet bubbling of boiling water.

She really hadn’t noticed it. Not at first. Not the first time he’d been over for dinner, not the first time he’d picked up the guitar she had found at the pawn shop down the block. It wasn’t that the scenario in and of itself was unfamiliar, it was just the first time she’d really...  _noticed_  that it was happening.

When you toss a box of dry pasta into a pot of boiling water it makes a certain sound, and a smell, and it’s only when you’ve started to mix all of these things together—when you remember that there’s a man, that man being Frank, playing guitar in your living room, when you notice that there’s a few flakes falling outside, you just might start to realize that you’re happy. And then, of course, you wonder if maybe it’s too good to be true.

* * *

“Hey. Page.”

At first it seems as if he’s calling to her from far away, her thoughts lost in a thick, momentary fog of illogical concern.

“Karen,” he says again, abrupt and immediate, he’s standing quite suddenly at her side. The guitar is leaning against the wall by the open window, the water is bubbling over the pasta that’s probably gone too soft by now, and damn, she was actually happy for a few blissful moments before she screwed it all up by “acknowledging” it.

Frank has this look that comes over his face when he notices anything less than contentment in her demeanor. His eyes go a bit small, and his mouth kind of tightens, and his back goes stiff like he’s a music box; or maybe more like another violent metaphor she can’t quite think of right now.

“You alright?”

“Yeah,” she answers quickly, smiling and shaking away the feeling like maybe this is all a little too temporary. “I’m good, sorry.”

She can tell he doesn’t quite believe her, but he’s merciful. Let’s her have the lie as they go about the surreal normality of prepping a meal. Pasta drained, jarred sauce heated, wine poured. It isn’t until the food’s gone, the apartment just a little bit darker than it had been earlier, the snow falling a little harder, that she’s struck yet again with the feeling that something isn’t quite right—that maybe neither of them are supposed to have moments like this.

He’s plucking away again, something darker and familiar. Like a blues song she’d once heard from the dark corner of a bar somewhere she’d only been half-listening. There’s an almost painful yearning somewhere inside of her that wants to hear him sing, but it’s there and gone before she’s even had the chance to properly imagine the roughness of his voice in song.

“I think I was happy for a second there.”

She confesses it so suddenly she surprises even herself, a quiet revelation that she shares with surprisingly little worry with regards to his answer. Not even sure if she needs an answer. But it falls out into the warmth of the room anyway, whisked away by the colder air as it makes a quick pass about the space above their heads. He doesn’t stop immediately, there’s a brief pause in his playing but the song finishes in a few more quiet strokes, ending on a deep note that reverberates from within the guitar’s belly.

His form is largely lost in shadow as he sits quietly in the armchair across from her, and in the ensuing silence his boot taps once or twice against the floor. Watching him think doesn’t make her quite so nervous as it does when other people do it. Like they might be plotting against her, or thinking up some viciously cruel comment about a character flaw she doesn’t know how to fix. She likes watching him think. It’s something like watching the gears spin at the back of a clock.

“Yeah?” he asks, the hint of a smile on his face. “A whole second?”

She watches his next few movements as if he were on a stage, she observing silently from the audience. The careful, deliberate way he rests the guitar against the chair so it won’t crash noisily to the floor; the way he stands and stretches away the tightness in his back, the slow heaviness of his few steps towards the couch; the way he looks at her for a few seconds before taking a seat at her side, the cushion sinking beneath his weight. He’s warm, too. Always warmer than she’s prepared for.

“How was it?”

Frank smells like generic soap you buy at the drug store. His lips are a little purple from the wine they’d been drinking, and she’s managed to find herself a nice, warm pocket. It’s safe, right here, isn’t it? Isn’t it enough to be safe just right here, just for right now?

“It was wonderful,” she answers slowly, staring a little too hard at his shoulder. Trying and trying and trying not to think about the fact that it can’t always be and having to be okay with that fact.

When his arm goes around her shoulders she sinks gratefully into the solidness of his side, cocooned in the cavernous space between his arm and torso. The smell of him is deeper here, spicier and more distracting and she closes her eyes on this day that went pretty well, all things considered. And before she falls asleep, in the last few, half-conscious moments, she can feel it—the humming in his chest. Just as rough as she’d imagined.


	3. 11.22.17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I literally do not know what this is. Do not ask me. I think it’s supposed to be a year in the life of Frank Castle trying to work up the nerve to kiss Karen Page? I think? **There’s a buttload of cursing in here btw, like, a lot.** So, ya know, if that bothers you. Keep out, nerds._

In the intervening weeks between permanently maiming one of his closest, oldest friends and attending his first meeting, he can’t stop envisioning the weight of her skull in his hand. In his memory, it is smaller than it should be; the bone too thin, full of too much blood, pounding so fast it’s gushing from her forehead and face in wave, after wave, after wave. There’s so much of it, she usually dies in his arms and all of a sudden he’s shot through like he was made of nothing but dirt. Like a big-ass block of Swiss fucking cheese.

But, oh, wait, he’ll remember suddenly—or he’ll wake up, covered in sweat, chest uncomfortably tight. She’d been alive, at the end, in the palm of his hand, her neck and her torso twisting towards him. Covered in some blood, some dust and debris, but her heart beating all the same. She ain’t dead yet. And neither is he.

* * *

“Why don’t you tell me about her?”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

 _Isn’t there?_  Maria’s voice in his head, it’s a little deeper than he remembers, rougher and crueler. She’s always coughing up dirt afterwards, like it’s trapped in her lungs. Like when he asked her to speak it shifted all that stuff around inside of her, and she’s gotta clear it out.

And, really, there is  _nothing_  to tell. For once. He’s never been one for words, always preferring the one-two punch to the “uh,” and the “um.” Words can be manipulated, used against him, misinterpreted. But if he’s in front of someone holding a gun to their head, they know what the fuck it means. Karen is good with words. He’d say too good, only the way she uses ‘em, it’s kind of familiar—the sound of her fingers tapping away on that keyboard, those times he’s drifted off on the couch in her living room, sounds a little bit like gunfire.

The first time they’d met, formally that is, she’d done most of the talking. It was a short conversation, if you could even call it that, but then there’d been this moment where neither of them had said much at all. There’d only been breath between them, and this tense feeling that shows up between your eyes when your brow’s been knitted a little too long. And in that silence there were all these unspoken, unsettled questions that he thought maybe he’d like her to answer. And it seemed like, maybe, he could answer a few for her too.

* * *

“Curtis was asking me about you.”

“Oh, yeah? What did you say?”

 _Yeah_ , brown, damp flecks hitting him square in the cheek, cold and smelling a little like death and mud,  _what **did**  you say?_

He doesn’t want there to be any kind of misunderstanding—he likes it when they talk.

“I like hearing her voice,” he can stubbornly admit, trying to think of a nice thing to say so Curtis doesn’t start accusing her of being a bad influence. Another Micro. When Maria speaks, in his head, he’s pretty sure, when she speaks sometimes her voice doesn’t sound like anything. Sometimes it sounds like his voice only the words are comin’ out all nasty from between her lips. Only Maria would’ve liked Karen and Karen would’ve liked her, and he can’t figure out how to get all this shit straight in his own head.

“Time, Frank,” Curtis will always remind him at the end of their meetings, at the end of casual stops for coffee, “It’s gonna take time.”

That’s the thing about time though, it always runs out, and he doesn’t want it runnin’ out before it’s too late. For her. For him, for the both of them, in some kind of silent, coded intimacy that he can’t make heads or tails of. He’s not sure he’d ever be capable of something like this, before. Would’ve gone right over his head. Would’ve been a pretty girl and he would’ve been a young, handsome guy, and maybe they would’ve shared a drink or something, but—

“Do you ever think about whether or not we would’ve been... friends?” he asks, hesitating, more timid than he’d like, “Before?”

If there’s one thing he could ever say for certain about Karen Page, it’s that she’d let you know if she thought you were asking a dumb fucking question. Fortunately for him, or perhaps not so fortunately, she never seems to find any of his questions dumb. Which means she thinks carefully about all of ‘em, and always gives him good, solid answers that make his heart beat a little too fast.

“I’m not sure,” she starts, tapping a finger against her lips, “I’m not sure we would’ve recognized each other then.”

He wants to say, well, no, of course we wouldn’t have, we didn’t  _know_  each other. But then he thinks about it, and he thinks a little bit more, and he wonders if maybe she’s not a little bit right (which, of course she is, he shouldn’t be surprised). He’s pretty sure she’s talking about something like a soul, which he’s never put much stock in to be quite honest, and from what she’s said about religion, never seemed like she did either. Then again, maybe it doesn’t need to be.

In his recollections of their late night, a bit buzzed on a bench by the water conversations, she’s spoken of her life before all of this. Before Nelson and Murdock, before The Punisher and  _The Bulletin_. “I was small,” she said, trying to hide a hiccup behind her lips, “and broke.”

“Man, you’re  _still_  broke.”

She’d laughed at that, loud and full-bodied and it was probably something to do with the whisky but he could’ve sworn he’d felt it like a goddamn drumbeat. All in his ears, behind his ribcage, like a grenade had gone off. And then it’d been gone, just like that, out onto the river, into the silence of a city before it’s had it’s coffee yet.

Small, and broke, and only one “professional” outfit, and didn’t know how to put make-up on, and a suitcase full of books and not much else. He wouldn’t have recognized her then.

“I think I would’ve,” he answers, watching this one piece of her hair whipping against her forehead. Taking note of that sheen in her eyes, the redness of her nose. “A little bit.”

“You would’ve walked right by me, Frank Castle.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he admits, standing up and reaching out a hand, thinking about how cold her apartment’s gonna be when they make it back, “but there’s no missing you now.”

* * *

It takes him another year before he can bring himself to kiss her. Really kiss her. No more of this forehead, cheek, anywhere but her lips, bullshit. Who the fuck is he? He’s Frank Castle.

 _Damn straight, baby._  Sometimes there’s a little bit of dirt gathered at the corner of her lips, but her eyes are a bit brighter these days. When he sees her. Her eyes are alive, and her cheeks are red, and sometimes he can even hear her voice. When she answers. Sometimes, she doesn’t even answer anymore.

It makes him think about those times, those times he’d get a hot head and he’d just be looking for a fight, and she wouldn’t fight, no matter how hard he pushed. Like she’d known there was nothing really to fight over, he was just trying to fulfill some fucked up impulse to pick a fight when there’s nothin’ to fight over. And that’d make him even more mad, because he would know she was right.

“Maria,” he confesses, laughing lightly, “she was always right about that shit.”

“Well, she’d have to be,” Curtis agrees, giving him a friendly knock on the shoulder, “puttin’ up with your stubborn ass.”

Anyway, it’s like that. It’s like... it’s hard to explain what it’s like. But he’s not sure he wants her to go. He’s not sure what it’ll mean if she goes. If he’s not on the receiving end of her rage, of her grief; if he can’t see the way her cheeks have sunken in, if he can’t smell the blood in his nose anymore. What does that even mean? What kind of man is he?

“The human kind,” pausing, taking a brief look about the room, “we’ve all lost people, Frank.”

He can hear Karen’s voice on the radio and it stings—when he’s not her hero anymore, when he’s no better than a sick kid who hadn’t been able to get his head on straight. Don’t like the way the world works? Blow it up.  _We’ve all lost people, Frank._

He kisses her for the first time in the hospital, ironically enough. Feels kind of fucked up, but then again, what isn’t these days? Technically, he’s still a dead man, but he’s got the fucking beard back, and the long hair, just to be safe. And they’re in the hospital because when aren’t they in the hospital, because Karen Page was born to unleash her wrath upon the world, only she’s braver than he is, she’s braver and smaller and her bones seem to break easier than his, and her skin is thinner and god fucking dammit, if she’s not just about to break the fuck  _in half_  and there’s not a fucking thing he can do to stop it—

“Frank,” whispering from the hospital bed, groggy and confused. “Frank?”

“Yeah,” he answers softly, taking her hand in his, trying not to think about the fact that her dried blood is seeping into the deep lines of his hands and how it’ll always be there after this, it’ll  _always be there_. “I’m here, Karen. Right here.”

“You ‘kay?”

“Am I okay?” he asks, surprised and a little bit angry, if he’s being honest—which it’s been recommended he be, “You just got a slug to the gut, Page.”

“It’s nothing,” she mumbles, fighting to stay awake and failing. “I’m fine.”

“Fine? You are  _not fine_.” 

But she’s unconscious before he can be properly angry with her, and then Murdock’s knocking against the door with that fucking stick and he knows there’ll be no more talking tonight.

* * *

He said that they kiss in the hospital, and they do kiss in the hospital, it’s just a few days later. A few days and a few nights and a few more visits from her loud, opinionated friends who he’s started to tune out like an AM radio station. When she’s sleeping he stares at her lips, and when she’s talking he stares, and when they’re wrapped around a straw he stares, and that’s when he thinks that maybe there’s been enough fucking time. I mean, if anything, there’s been more than enough of it, because some cruel fucking God had up and decided to take her out of this equation he’d been trying to figure out since he woke up in a hospital with the sound of his family’s screams in his ears.

“How’s your girlfriend?”

David’s voice is smug over the phone, and he very nearly hangs up, but then he remembers why he called, and Leo had some kind of science fair and he’d helped with the volcano, okay? He wanted to know how the fuck it went. So sue him.

“Yeah, Lieberman, she’s fine, so keep your opinions to yourself, okay?”

It’s quiet for a few moments, the sound of Leo or Zach laughing in the background and Frank’s chest hurts for a minute. And the pain radiates a little bit, he can feel it in his collarbones and his jaw and down his shoulders and there’s this familiar moment where he considers throwing the phone against the wall, smashing it to pieces. Takes a breath instead.

“Remember how I told you about my first date with Sarah?”

“Yeah,” Frank answers, half-listening, trying to figure out whether the two moron twins have left her room yet, “sure do.”

“I was so fucking scared, man. Shit is scary.”

“Scary? It’s not scary, what the hell are you talking about?”

David sighs, kind of laughs, which is infuriating, but he lets it pass. Lets it all pass. Hears her door open, then close, then Red’s stick tapping in the distance.

“Yeah, it’s alright, ya know? It’s really okay.”

“Yep, yeah, I gotta go. Tell Leo I’m proud of her.”

“Will do, Frank.”

* * *

It’s the smile that does him in. When he walks back in the room? She fucking smiles at him. Smiling at him like she hasn’t seen him in weeks, months even, only he’d been gone 15 minutes.

“Hey,” exclaiming in a relieved breath, her eyes sparkling and her skin flushed as opposed to that sick, pale color she’d been when he’d brought her in. Barely breathing, barely moving, barely—

“Where’d you go?”

“Uh,” interrupting his thoughts before they could run even further away, “talking to David. Leo had her science fair today.”

“Oh, that’s right!” she says, smiling and remembering like she actually gives a shit. Which, yeah, Frank,  _she does_. “How’d it go?”

“Fine. It went fine.”

She nods and smiles some more, pushes some hair behind her ear in a painfully familiar way, and on top of the fact that she won’t stop  _smiling_  at him, is the fact that her movements have become familiar to him. They’ve become as familiar as breathing. The way she pushes her hands through her hair, the way it moves; the way she chews on her bottom lip, the way she holds a mug in her hand.

God, there’s a pressure building behind his eyes. Something like a feeling of relief and pain all at once? If he’d been in a room full of soldiers they might be able to relate to the feeling, he’s not so sure if Karen, or most people for that matter, would be able to understand that when he cries, when he even  _thinks of it_ , that it’s fucking torture. It’s torture, because he knows it’s a thing he’s not supposed to do, even though Curtis won’t stop telling him that yes, it’s absolutely a thing you  _should do_ , he doesn’t want to do it. Feels like a bullet ripping through his chest. Would rather it be a bullet ripping through his chest.

“Frank?” she asks, a note of worry in her voice. Trying to sit up straighter, wincing and placing a hand on her abdomen. It’s too easy for him to imagine what it could’ve looked like—had it all gone wrong. If he hadn’t been there. Insides all over her outsides, blood pooling underneath her— _stop_. Stop.

“Don’t move,” he says, quickly moving to her side, sniffing and blinking and trying to look for all the world like a person who has his shit together. Fat fucking chance. “Don’t move, you’ll tear the stitches.”

“Are you okay?” Brow furrowed, a hand reaching for his sleeve, hovering over the fabric like she’s afraid he’ll bite or run away, and he’d rather she just smile again.

“I’m good,” he assures her, a bit of a lie at first. Too used to telling people he’s “good,” when really it’s a lie, but all of a sudden, he realizes he might be telling the truth, and somehow her  _hair_  looks soft even though she’s been in the hospital for a week and it should look like garbage, and he just can’t not—

Kiss her. His hands, clean now, callused and lined, and the knuckles bigger than they used to be, cupping her face and moving all that hair out of her eyes and bending down because he’s just too  _big_  for this. She tastes like jello. Lime jello, and her lips are a little bit chapped, but they still open against his and he almost sobs in relief. Her hand finally touching down against the sleeve of his jacket, gripping tight and pulling and when he hears a small gasp of pain he pulls away enough to see her grin.

“I’m okay,” she whispers, a gentle sound underneath all that chaotic beeping. All those footsteps outside, those voices and clipboards and whatever else makes up a place. Her eyes look a little wet, and he’d be nervous it’d all gone horribly wrong, only it all looks a little too familiar for it to be a mistake.

“Hey,” readjusting his hands where they seem to have become glued to her cheekbones, trying to follow her eyes as they move back and forth over the planes of his face, trying to memorize him in the same moment he’s trying to memorize her, and he just thinks of the dumbest fucking thing to say. 

“I think I recognize you.”


	4. 03.09.18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Um. Long time no see? I saw **[this photo](http://starlessness.tumblr.com/post/170558508087)** of a man braiding a girl’s hair? So, naturally I thought of Frank Castle? Sure. Fuck me, I guess. Also, I’ve taken some obvious liberties with Frank’s personal history here. I nabbed his parents’ names from the **[Marvel Wiki](https://marvel.com/universe/Punisher_\(Frank_Castle\)#axzz57tfzqpex)** , everything else is of my own design. xoxo, Gossip Girl_

You’re a kid—what’re some of the first lies you learn about death? That it doesn’t hurt. That you won’t be alone. It’s nothing to be afraid of. Then there’s the smaller, seemingly inconsequential untruths. That your hair keeps growing long after your heart stops beating. Nails too. Long, thin, brittle bones curling into the satin lining of your coffin.

When he’s a kid, no older than 5 or 6, Frank’s mother had let his hair grow long. She had liked how thick it was. Said her brother’s hair had been just the same. All the girls had loved him for it. Frank liked the feeling of her hand running through it, sweeping it across his forehead—letting the water slick it back in the bath. His father wasn’t  _quite_  as taken by it. Mario Lorenzo Castiglione didn’t raise no  _queers_. He’d made Frank cut it as soon as he was sober enough to realize how long it’d gotten. Louisa’s pitiful, whimpering protestations be damned. She’d get over it. 

“That’s what women do, Frankie.”

* * *

Your hair doesn’t keep growing after you die—it’s an illusion. A trick of decay and desiccation. It’s not that your hair’s longer, it’s that there’s less of  _you_. Not that he’d ever tell Lisa or Frank Jr. that, God forbid. Maria would kill him.

* * *

Lisa had been born with a full head of dark, right-on-the-cusp-of-black hair, just like her dad and her grandmother’s brother.

“We’re going to be cleaning it off the floor for the rest of our lives,” Maria had joked, exhausted and bedridden.

“Yeah,” he answered, distracted by the sight of his daughter’s sleeping face.

Sure enough, he would find the shit  _everywhere_. Little nests of it in the corner of the living room; lining the tiled wall of the shower; plastered along the rim of the sink. He stopped imagining her small, pink little face—how in love he’d been the night she was born. How he had made a promise to himself that he’d never lose his temper, how she would always know she was safe with him. Like most parents, he would sometimes forget the magic of that night. He would yell at her for stupid shit, she would yell back. Never knowing that he’d regret it, that he would have lived in her childish messes for the rest of his life so long as she was with him. 

When he had returned home after one of many overseas tours, Maria had shown him how to braid it. It had been one of the few moments he had felt relaxed, like he actually  _belonged_  in his living room; didn’t feel like maybe he had gotten trapped in some other asshole’s life.

“I have a doctor’s appointment, early tomorrow morning,” she explained, “I need you to do it before she leaves for school.”

Once they had finally gotten her to sit still, Frank had watched, silent (and a bit nervous), at the sight of it. The way Maria’s fingers twirled and pulled at the thick strands, twisting them backwards and forwards in a practiced way that left him feeling a little bit more in love with her. His own fingers felt fat and clumsy. They felt threatening. He considered the smallness of Lisa’s head, how it balanced precariously at the top of her thin, fragile neck.

It took a few tries but he managed to get a “Good enough,” out of his wife, which was evidently good enough for everyone else. He got better at it over the years—hell, he even looked forward to itfrom time to time. When he was sitting on the plane home, twiddling his thumbs, trying not to think about things it was  _impossible_  not to think about, he would think about the steady back-and-forth, the under and over-ness of braiding her hair in the bluish light of the television, late at night, without realizing he had even begun.

* * *

Somewhat reluctantly, Curtis tells him that Lisa Castle’s wake was closed casket. There had been no other option. Just as well. Morticians only ever imitated life, and it was often so obvious of a fake that you wished they hadn’t bothered with it in the first place. He’s glad he hadn’t been there. Not that it matters. Whatever his imagination can conjure is just as bad, if not worse, than the reality.

In a pathetic attempt to heal itself, his mind will often try thinking of her hair. The smell of her “No Tears,” shampoo; the feeling of it slipping between his fingers. It had been trained too well—his mind—in moments of stress, returning to a crumbling well of “calming memories” that no longer offered the kind of relief they once did.

It’s been about a year since Lisa’s closed casket. Since  _all_  of their sealed wooden boxes buried beneath the dirt, and now, when his mind runs for those memories, they’re only ever drowning in blood. His daughter’s neck hanging at an odd, sickening angle. When he tugs lightly on the strands of her hair, her head falls backwards into his lap and he shoots up in bed like all those other nights before, pulling at his own long, suffocating head of hair, desperately wishing for the monotonous buzz of a beard trimmer.

* * *

The first time he had seen Karen Page, he had briefly observed that her hair made her look like a target. It was long and pale, and swished around her shoulders like she was in some goddamn shampoo commercial or something. It’s funny to think, a year or so gone after that night, and he’s considering asking her to dye it. Ya know, for his own sanity.

Frank’s seen blondes before. He’s not some blind, unimaginative idiot. The blonde girl-next-door? Nothing more American than Her. But Karen Page ain’t any blonde. Not really the girl-next-door type either, even though she might’ve been, long before she’d even known his name. Just like he was the perfect soldier, once upon a time. Hell, they might as well have stuck him in one of those commercials they screen at high schools with how fucking  _exemplary_  he’d been. If he was to say there was anything “all-American” about her, he’d say that Karen Page is a little bit more like the America before anyone knew they were even gonna call it that. Like all that large, open space no one had really known what to do with—an intimidating landscape of freedom and danger. A yawning, dark abyss of tall, menacing trees; swaths of land that seemed to go into forever, like the ocean disappearing into the sun.

Mario Castiglione would’ve hated her. He would’ve pretended he liked her, the way men do. They “admire your spunk,” right up until you’ve talked a little bit too much and then you’re just like all the other bitches. To hell with him. He never knew a damn thing.

* * *

They’re meeting at the waterfront, their usual spot, and it’s late spring. A little bit warmer than it should be, so Frank’s sleeves are rolled to the elbow, and Karen’s hair is clipped to the top of her head. She’s speaking passionately about something, some dumbass politician or other, and her hair falls suddenly, that flimsy clip losing the war with that thick, bright monstrosity on top of her head. He thinks, briefly, that it kind of makes her look like a princess in one of Lisa’s storybooks. Stupid.

“Oh, shit,” she grumbles, throwing the busted clip into her bag, “that’s the third one of these I’ve bought  _this month_!”

She twists it around her finger, pushes it back around her neck and over one shoulder, trying to leave as much of her skin exposed as possible, and while Frank’s seen it down plenty of times before, he finds himself a bit more... distracted than he’s been in the past. The way the breeze manages to catch pieces of it, watching how the thin strands stick to her lips when she talks.  _Shit._

“I swear, it’s like it has a mind of its own.”

* * *

Even after she’s been thrown clear across the room by a bomb or dodged a few bullets, it’s still bright as ever—bright and distracting and full of knots that frame her face like a wreath made of thorns. A woman like her, history tells us that she should have the darker coloring of some femme fatale, like in the movies. Her lips should be blood red, her eyes dark, her hair more so. It’s harder to make out the tangles in darker hair but with Karen, he can see each and every one. And he watches, from the hallway, the way she angrily tugs a useless comb through it; smelling like smoke, blood, sweat.

“You need any help, Karen?”

She sniffs a bit, her eyes suspiciously red when she coughs out an unnecessarily polite, “No thank you,” but he wanders over anyway, gently plucks the comb out of her hand and gives her a once over.

“You don’t gotta do this now, take a minute. You eat anything yet?”

She shakes her head no, and says, quietly, “It’ll be a mess tomorrow if I don’t.”

“That’s alright,” he answers, looking down at the tiled floor and kind of hating himself for it, “I like it.”

Karen snorts and offers him a small smile, which he plans on taking as a victory. Steps aside and watches as she sighs and rolls the ripped stockings down her legs. Tries to ignore the way she limps towards the living room, tossing the ruined garment into the trash before taking a seat on the couch.

Her apartment is blessedly quiet aside from the usual sounds of the city filtering in through the open window, and he finds himself wondering, once again, how it is they get themselves into these situations. He should stop being so surprised.

“You ever think about cutting it?” he asks, curious, falling heavily onto the couch beside her, his weight and momentum causing her to sway slightly into his shoulder.

“But then I’d lose all my power,” she answers jokingly, twirling an untangled piece of it around her finger. “How else would I destroy all those  _bad men_?”

He  _should_  say something like, “You shouldn’t be fighting anybody,” something like, “I need you safe,” but he knows it makes him sound like a broken record, and besides, it’s just plain wrong. Looking at her with that busted lip, the blood drying at the corner—the scraped knees, the loose, unfettered mane draped over her shoulders. The way it had looked with that gun in her hand, the way she could’ve started eating it if she had a mind to, caught in her mouth and between her teeth, her eyes bright with an anger that he both fears and admires.

“Yeah,” he says, tugging playfully on one of the strands, “you’re right.”

**Author's Note:**

> Most of my writing is gonna be found [@hencethebravery](http://hencethebravery.tumblr.com/), but I post a lot of Kastle and Punisher-related garbage on my main blog, [@starlessness](http://starlessness.tumblr.com/).


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